this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
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What do you mean? Is there even enough steel on earth to build something that tall? How would such a structure be possible when we can't even keep our ground level structures properly maintained?
The current idea is carbon tubes to make the supports light enough, but material science is nowhere near close enough for a space elevator.
and this is why we must build the space staircase first before we embark on the mysteries of the elevator
Oof I’ve heard of a walk-up but this is ridiculous!
The key idea of a space elevator is that it's being held in tension by a counterweight just past the point of a geosynchronous orbit. The problem of course being that even being in tension like that we don't have anything that could support its own weight let alone the capacity to construct and place such a massive structure.
A side note is that earth is probably one of the worst places for a space elevator anyways, the moon isn't an awful choice though.
supposedly we could do one on the moon to lunar orbit with current materials....
except for the gosh dang UV sensitivity